Sports

Canada’s coach Lindy Ruff talks to players during training for tomorrow’s 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship quarter-final match against Sweden in Stockholm May 15. Ruff was named the Dallas Stars new head coach in June. SUBMITTED BY SCANPIX SWEDEN

Despite having coached the Buffalo Sabres to multiple Eastern Conference Finals and a Stanley Cup Final, some of Lindy Ruff’s favourite hockey memories are from his time growing up in Warburg. Ruff spoke to The Rep about being hired as the Dallas Stars new head coach, the draft, leaving Buffalo and growing up in Warburg.

How do you feel the Stars did in the draft?

From a coach’s perspective, we know very little, but everybody was really excited about the picks they got. The draft was pretty deep and there were a lot of good players.

As a head coach, how much input do you have in the players the organization decides to go after?

None. I was involved a lot more in Buffalo because I was there for so long. Having just been hired, I was not really up on the draft and prospects this year.
I know where they’re focused and saw the players they got and I was there to support the other areas of the organization.

After spending so much of your career as a player and coach in Buffalo, what has the transition to Dallas been like so far?

It’s been fast paced to far. Being here (Buffalo) so long it’s going to take a lot to pick up and leave. I don’t know if we’ll ever completely pick up and leave.

Do you still have a lot of family in New York? Will they be moving to Dallas with you?

I actually have family everywhere because my kids are all in school now. I’ve got a Boston University freshman.
I have a Miami University freshman and I have a daughter who is doing her master’s at the University of Pittsburgh. So we have no one at home to drag with us.

Where you shocked by the Sabres’ decision to relieve you of your coaching duties?

At the time, I was. You’re always shocked when it happens, but I think that looking at our record and expectations, it’s something in our business that usually happens a lot sooner.
I don’t think coaches should ever be shocked. There have been a lot more shocking releases in my time here than mine.

Did you get to spend any time back in Alberta in your time off?

I did have a few days in Warburg. I surprised my parents.
I knocked on the door and hid, stood around the corner and they said, “What are you doing here?”

Do you still have friends and family in Warburg?

My mom and dad are there. I have some friends in Drayton Valley and we still keep in touch. I have friends from Warburg, who are no longer there.
They’ve either moved on to Edmonton or other areas of Leduc. We get to see each other every now and then.

You’ve coached successful teams that were particularly defensive and ones that were particularly offensive. It seems like you’ve adjusted your coaching style over the years depending on the strengths of the players you have. What adjustments are you making to coach Dallas?

I have to get a real good read on what we have.
As a coach, it’s fitting those players into that style.
We had some great defensive years in Buffalo.
We played some systems that leant towards the players we had.
We came out of the lockout with three really strong lines and the focus was to be a really good offensive team without sacrificing defense and I think we did sacrifice it a little bit.
We won a lot of games 5-3, 6-4, 7-4, which are games you don’t see too often any more.
We were deep and when you’re that deep, it’s usually a pretty good match up.
In Dallas, I don’t want to put anybody in any particular position until I have practice and watch them play. You have to get inside work with them to figure out exactly how you want to use them.
Once you know what their strengths are, you want to use them to their strengths. A lot of times that sort of thing will work itself out.
What are you bringing to the Stars they didn’t have before?
I’m bringing a vast amount of experience playing different styles and dealing with different situations.
That experience only comes by living it. There are things you can’t teach a coach.
You have to live them. Some you learn by losing and some you learn by winning.
I am hopeful that those experiences can lead to success, knowing that none of this is easy.

Did you have any reservations at all about going to Dallas of all teams considering they were the team that stood in your way of a cup in 1999?

We’ve got to get over that. That was 14 years ago. That incident didn’t hurt Dallas at all so they have nothing but good memories from 1999, and I have nothing but bad memories.
It was one hell of a playoff run against one heck of a team. We put up a hell of a fight and that’s what I’m going to remember.

Do you have any favourite hockey memories about growing up in Warburg?

The best memories for me were playing on the outdoor rinks in Warburg and having my parents standing in the snow bank somewhere along centre ice and watching me play. I can still remember playing in some of the different small towns like Winfield. When I got to a certain age, which was first year Bantam, there wasn’t a team any more so I had to move on to Drayton Valley. I still remember my coaches. I still remember winning a tournament where my coach said if we win we could all boot him in the butt. We came back to win that tournament and that’s what we did. Gorden Shnick who ran the lumberyard in Warburg was my coach. I’ll never forget playing for him. There are memories of Warburg that I’ll never forget and they’re all good memories.
I also have great baseball memories. We went to the Western Canadian Finals as a baseball team. A lot of good friends from the Warburg-Thorsby area banded together and beat out Edmonton. We ended up in Brandon, Manitoba. We had no way to get there so my dad piled us on a school bus and drove it there for the finals. That group of guys were country kids and a lot of them are still real good friends today. We got together for Warburg’s 100th anniversary and played a game. Those guys are friends for life. I want them to know they’ve still got a special place with me.

I came from a family of four brothers that all played hockey. My family is really important to me. I spent five or six years playing with my brother Randy, who was a big support in my junior years. He was a heck of a player and spending those years with him was really important to me.

My younger brother was drafted in the first round by St. Louis. I missed out a little bit on him because I was gone when he got into his key age playing.

My youngest brother, we lost. That one’s still etched in my heart.

What was important is I always went back home and spent time with my friends. They were my friends before I got drafted and they were my friends after I got drafted. Although you drift apart over the years, you still consider them all good friends. Whether you get back together with them whether it’s 5 years or 20 years, a lot of it feels like yesterday. You have the same laughs and same memories and you recount all those great stories. Through the whole process of leaving and being lucky enough to play pro hockey being from a small town, it’s always been important to get back and spend time there.

What will you miss the most about being in Buffalo?

It’s an incredibly people friendly area. It’s a city, but feels like a small town a lot of the time. We have a lot of good friends here.

Have you become much of a Bills fan living in Buffalo all these years?

Oh yeah. It would have been hard not to. I was here playing through the glory years. I became friends with a few of the Bills – Jim Kelly, Fred Smerlas, and Jim Haslett. We found ourselves together at different times during the season and played in golf tournaments together in the summer. So it was a unique situation. Buffalo was a small city so that part wasn’t hard.
Do you think EJ Manual is the real deal?

I’m not very good at looking at college players and telling you whether they’re the real deal or not, but the real deal in today’s NFL seems to be a mobile quarterback and he’s definitely got that. Football for me is like hockey. If you don’t have a goalie, it’s tough and if you don’t have a quarterback, it’s tough. I liked their draft. I think they got a pretty good piece there.